Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Janet

Although Janet's shenanigans exasperate Joanna and make Jeannine want to melt into walls, Janet is their dream feminist and the incarnation of their desire for a different world. To Laura Rose Wilder, she acts as the gentle, respectful guide who paves the way for her sexual awakening, and to the men of Joanna's Earth, she's living proof that women are capable of great things.

Jael

She's no Mr. Miyagi, but when things get hairy, it's good to have Jael on your side. Flaky, flighty, naïve Jeannine is drawn to Jael's cool, collected anger right away. By the end of the novel, even Joanna admits: "I think—when I stop to think about it, which is not often—that I like Jael the best of us all, that I would like to be Jael, twisted as she is on the rack of her own hard logic, triumphant in her extremity" (9.7.25).